Hiroshi Sugimoto's "Lost Human Genetic Archive," the inaugural exhibition for the reopening of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography (now the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum), is an erudite and elaborate exercise in gallows humor. The theme is the end of civilization and human life, but possibly also, and quite worryingly given the circumstances, the end of film photography.
The first part of the show is composed of 33 narratives, using text and found objects to recount different ways we may collectively face the final curtain. The immersive installation of discarded junk, mixed with the occasional museum piece or artwork, may come as a surprise to Sugimoto fans who are used to his austere and formalist black and white prints.
The third floor of the museum has been almost entirely clad with rusting corrugated iron sheets and salvaged wood planks, and is divided into small room-sized sections, one for each of the narratives. Stories of the end of the world are told through different imaginary characters and their handwritten scripts (all Japanese), combined with installations of found and created objects.